 Rob & Martin Drake-Knight were born in Newport on the Isle of Wight and raised in Lake on the sleepy coastal resort of Sandown Bay on the Isle of Wight. Today they run Award-Winning Eco-Fashion brand Rapanui.
Their childhood was a series of crazes - tamigotchi, yo yos, pogs, rollerblading and skateboarding - but the one that really stuck was surfing. From their clifftop home they spent a lot of time surfing Sandown bay in-between school time.
Entrepreneurship started early; Martin’s most successful inventions like a fold up surfboard, a wind powered street light and a d-i-y downhill go-kart all made it to the business proposal and patent stage thanks to older brother Rob’s appetite for business.
Rapanui was their first successful venture. At 19 and 21 respectively, Rob and Martin set up their brand, which 4 years later makes some of the most eco-friendly clothing in the world, and have quickly grown to be one of the Islands success stories for young people, recently winning the Sustain Awards, the Sustainable Business awards and opening a new shop at 1 High Street, Sandown.
They describe their business as “just another craze, but it’s got totally out of control.
Rob says, “Martin and I live on the Isle of Wight in the UK, a tourist industry based island with high youth unemployment and a prevalence of seasonal jobs. We love living here as our friends and family are still here and we enjoy surfing, fishing etc. When we finished university on the mainland we wanted to move home and spent a long time looking for work unsuccessfully, we then decided - if we can’t find a job, we’ll make one. We’ve always been entrepreneurial (we made and sold go karts to friends when we were growing up) and we’ve always wanted to do our own thing, now we have an office on the beach so we can go fishing and surfing when we like and a skate ramp in the office. We started our business with £200 each and now employ 8 people”. |
